Aimless pizza shop gunman latched onto internet, religion

SALISBURY, N.C. (AP) — Before he was charged with firing an assault rifle inside a Washington restaurant, where he had been drawn by an online hoax, Edgar Maddison Welch was known as a well-meaning father of two girls who unnerved some with his religious fervor and sometimes had trouble detaching himself from the internet.

Police say he came to the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant Sunday on a self-imposed mission to investigate a false account of a child sex ring that had spread through fake internet news stories.

Along the way, he was convicted of drunken driving and minor drug charges.

In late October, the 28-year-old struck a teenage pedestrian with his car in his hometown of Salisbury, requiring the boy to be airlifted to a hospital, according to a police report that said he wasn't immediately charged.

[...] days before he drove to Washington, he was dropped from the rolls of a volunteer fire department.

Tadlock said Welch's parents haven't been able to talk to him to ask what he was thinking, and the family's only information comes from the news and the public defender.

Around age 18, Welch pleaded guilty to misdemeanor drug possession charges in neighboring Cabarrus County, according to online records of the January 2007 offense.

Welch enrolled at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, but court records say he didn't graduate.

Court records from 2013 say he worked for a film production company linked to his family, but at the time of his Washington arrest he listed a grocery store as his employer.